My Fitness Pal

My Fitness Pal

I recently upgraded my phone from iPhone 5 to iPhone 6, no comments about this please! I have no experience of Android so I’m not sure if it’s the same faff trying to transfer all your stuff from one phone to another but with Apple it really can be, particularly when you’ve had a new laptop since your last sync. So after managing to get all my files sorted onto my new laptop and then onto my new phone I was both upset and very thankful that one of the little problems I have had is that my old calorie counter app had lost all of the meals and foods I had added to my custom food that I had accumulated over the years of use. The reason I was actually happy for this to happen was that I had now no excuse not to try something new.

The Calorie Counter App is terrible, one of the worst things ever created. It would randomly change all my foods logged some days to a certain different food, it wouldn’t load some foods, it never remembered anything, custom foods had their default serving changed, and it was an absolute nightmare day in day out. I was therefore very skeptical when downloading a new one. I had a look at all the reviews and chose the one with the best that had the best interlink able features with some of my other apps. I chose My Fitness Pal.

So the first thing I really like about this app is that it seems to know every food imaginable. It even knows some of the slightly odd supplements I am on. I’m not sure if it is live searching or if people have loaded them all but I’ve checked and they all seem accurate too. Maybe my fascination with this feature is due to my underwhelming experience with my previous app? I should probably be expecting to not have issues with logging food, right?

Another feature I really like is that I can have all my daily nutritional and exercise elements in one place. It automatically syncs with my Withings scales and my activities on Strava. I don’t need to track my weight on one app, check the calories I’ve burnt on another and then load all information onto a third. Everything’s looking good for this app.

Of course you have the usual stuff to fill in at the beginning, your basic information and how much weight you want to lose. You need to estimate your activity level before you add in exercise and the app will then set you a daily calorie limit as a base. This is an alright feature although the first day I used it I hadn’t realised it had taken this into account and ended up massively under-eating! My mistake though as it’s quite clear to see at the top of the diary feature.

Counting calories isn’t for everyone. I also suggest to my clients who struggle with their weight or would like to drop a few pound that this is the first and probably most useful starting point. Most people don’t realise how much they are eating. Similarly, there are enough athletes out there who don’t know how much to eat and continually under-eat. Both are great reasons to starting counting calories.

I’ve yet to find any problems with this app, but its early days, although this negativity could be lingering from my previous app. The fact I’m going to continue using this app and recommending it to my clients is testament enough that this app is doing the right things. All I can say is I wish I had converted earlier, would have saved me a lot of stressful moments! Other developers take note, this is how it’s done! Well done My Fitness Pal!

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